Weekend in sight! Here’s a gathering of genealogy updates that made their way across my desk this week:

Subscription and pay-per-view British genealogy service Familyrelatives.com has a new collection of Professional member lists including Engineers Who’s Who 1939 (which has many engineers at work preparing for war) and the 1923 Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.

New on subscription site World Vital Records this week are 10 databases of birth, marriage and death information from genealogy books on Ireland, Maine, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia. See the details here.

Family historians get a two-fer this weekend on CBS “Sunday Morning”: Topics include keeping your family’s memories technologically accessible and the first national census. Bet this show would go great with pancakes.

The company has raised $2.85 million in “Series B” funding (the second round of preferred stock in a private company offered to venture capitalists). The initial round of funding in August 2007 brought in $1.25 million.

FamilyLink.com's announcement also notes the company turned profitable late last year. Thirty people work at its US offices in Seattle; Boulder, CO; and Provo, Utah. It has development offices in India and the Philippines.

More genealogy records are coming to Lowcountry Africana, a Web site and research project to study the Gullah/Geechee cultural heritage of those with African-American roots in South Carolina, Georgia, and northeastern Florida.

After Confederate president Jefferson Davis’ slave William Jackson escaped in 1861, he provided the Union with valuable information he’d overheard about supply routes and strategy. Harriet Tubman, Robert Smalls and countless others also delivered secret intelligence. Union soldiers called their reports “black dispatches.”

Ken Dagler, author of a book titled Black Dispatches (who’s also “written extensively on the issue for the CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence”) tells CNN that slaves’ reliance on oral tradition gave them practice memorizing details.

Of the library's 57 positions, the plan would eliminate 50 and transfer one, leaving six staff members to maintain public access to the library’s resources.

Those resources include government publications, a book collection Benjamin Franklin started, historical newspapers, and a genealogy room with maps, state and county histories, church and cemetery records, and more.

The list bears the names of Canadian-born Chinese who registered with the government as required by the Chinese Immigration Act of 1923. Designed to curtail Chinese immigration to Canada, the act joined a procession of laws levying head taxes on Chinese immigrants. The regulations were finally lifted in 1947.

The wiki contains transcribed information on 461 people recorded on the list, covering the years from Won Alexander Cumyow’s birth in 1861 to Lee Kang Gee’s birth in 1900 (both were born in British Columbia, where most of Canada's Chinese residents lived).

Family History Expos—St. George:Family Tree Magazine is a sponsor of this laid-back conference in sunny St. George, Utah, Feb. 27 and 28. Registration costs $60 until Feb. 14 (get a move on!) and $65 after.

Ohio Genealogical Society: This large state society confabs April 2-5 in Huron, Ohio. (If you love roller coasters, Cedar Point isn’t far away.) March 15 is the early registration deadline; download the conference brochure for prices.

National Genealogical Society (NGS): We hope to see you at this conference in Raleigh, NC, May 13-16. Register before March 31 for the early-bird discount (check out the new NGS Web site while you’re at it).

International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies: Online registration http://www.philly2009.org/ just opened for this conference in Philadelphia Aug. 2-7. (The program schedule listing classes is still to come.)

Confederate Applications for Presidential Pardons contains records of former Confederates who requested pardons.

Lincoln successor Andrew Johnson issued a proclamation of general amnesty for Confederates, but it didn't cover certain groups such as government officials, higher ranking military officers and those with property valued at more than $20,000. Those people had to apply for pardons.

Civil War Soldier Records and Profiles has information on nearly every officer and soldier who fought in the Civil War (compiled from sources such as state rosters and regimental histories).

ProQuest is getting together with the Center for Research Libraries (a consortium of 240 college, university and other libraries) to offer digital access to 3 million pages of US trade, special-interest and general periodicals from the 19th and 20th centuries. Magazines include American Annual of Photography, The Labor Journal, American Jewish Advocate and Woman’s Protest Against Woman Suffrage and others.

Even if these titles don’t mention your ancestor, they'll enlighten you about his of her occupation, hobbies and interests, and suggest where to look next for records.

ProQuest Historical Newspapers is expanding to include The Baltimore Sun from 1837 to 1985. The span covers Baltimore’s role as a busy immigration and trade center, as well as Maryland’s role as a slave-holding border state during the Civil War.

I’m 90 percent sure my long search for my immigrant great-grandparents' passenger list has come to an end. A few small but significant details dragged out my search—maybe my “lessons learned” will help you.

Then the key step: I removed the first name and searched a month at a time. Fadlo Hadad jumped out on a Nov. 4 list. My great-grandfatherused Fadlow on his WWI draft registration, and made it his son’s middle name. Could it be a short form of Fadallah? (If anyone’s in the know on this, feel free to comment.)

Beneath Fadlo on the record was wife Maria. My great-grandmother Mary also shows up in various records as Mattie and Marianna. The Ellis Island indexer kindly recorded her as Maria Hadad rather than wife. I probably came across this record early in my research and discounted it because I didn’t recognize Fadlo.

The 10 percent uncertainty level comes from the name, their ages—17 and 21, both two years too old, according to other records—and the origin of Turkey (albeit with the last residence Arabo, as the ship’s Neopolitan clerk recorded it). I do have another record giving Turkey as my Syrian ancestor’s homeland, and I haven't found any other Fadlos or Fadlows close to my ancestor's age in US records.

But I still couldn’t find Fadlo in Ancestry.com’s immigration collection. I searched on Maria Fadlo, and Maria showed up, indexed as Maria Fadlo Wife. Below her in the results was her husband, indexed with Hadad as the first name, Fadlo as the last.

Another look at the list—the ship’s clerk switched from recording passengers last-name-first to recording them first-name-first. The Ancestry.com indexer transcribed exactly what was on the record; the Ellis Island indexer did some genealogical deduction.

So, my lessons learned:

Look for evidence of different names your ancestor may have used, and repeat searches as you learn more.

Search different databases.

Try last-name only searches.

Search for women on the first name wife (another lady on the list was recorded the same way).

In observance of Black History month, this week we’ll highlight Web sites from our “Best for African-American Researchers” category:

Lowcountry Africana: This free site focuses on records that document the heritage of African-Americans in the historic rice-growing areas of South Carolina, Georgia and northeastern Florida, home to the distinctive Gullah/Geechee culture. Records include those of the wealthy Drayton family, which owned several plantations, plus Freedmen's Bureau and Freedman's Bank papers.

A plethora of parties are planned to honor the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth Feb. 12. (That’s also the 82nd anniversary of my grandma’s birth and the ninth anniversary of my nephew’s birth, so I’ll have to divvy up my celebrating.)

Go to the Lincoln Bicentennial Web site to find local observances, get facts on the 16th president’s life and download the text of his speeches and letters.

Historical records site Footnote is showcasing its Abraham Lincoln "person page" with a timeline, stories and digitized photos and articles (including a reward poster seeking assassin John Wilkes Booth and accomplices John H. Surrat and David C. Harold).

You may be a cousin and not know it—supposedly, Abraham Lincoln kept quiet about his family because he believed his mother was born out of wedlock. No one's found records to prove or disprove his suspicions. But maybe he didn't have to worry so much: the fact we're celebrating 200 years later shows actions speak louder than ancestry.

Diane wasn't the only one getting lucky with Footnote in the office today—I found my great-grandfather's naturalization papers in Footnote's Northern Ohio naturalizations collection!

My great-grandfather's witnesses on his petition for naturalization have opened up a few new avenues into discovering Wasyl's life. (I don't recognize either of the names.) I feel lucky to have found such a great photo of him—I only have one other—and a signature, to boot? Goldmine!

I had a little fun with Google Maps, too—it turns out that Diane's great-grandfather and my great-grandfather lived a mere 2 miles from each other on Cleveland's West Side around 1940. Maybe they once met!

My grandfather’s resume says his father was naturalized in 1944 in Cleveland. So a couple of years ago, I sent off a Freedom of Information Act request for those records to the Citizenship and Immigration Service. No dice.

Then when I noticed the subscription records site Footnote was posting citizenship papers from the US District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, Eastern District, I started eyeing the “percent completed” bar as it ticked upward.

Every once in awhile, I’d search. Still nothing. I wondered if my grandfather fibbed, thinking he’d have a better chance at a job if his dad were a citizen. (Grandpa made himself 10 years younger on the same resume.)

Friday I tried again. I clicked on a match, even though the first name was all wrong. And it was my great-grandfather! His address and birth date; his wife’s death information; and the kids’ names and birth dates confirmed it. Looks like his name in Syria was Fadlallah. I knew him only as Mike in US records—I guess if you're gonna Americanize your name, you might as well go all the way.

Best of all, his picture’s on the 1942 declaration of intention (also called “first papers”). I’d never seen him.

Also part of the file was an oath sworn by two associates and a 1944 petition for naturalization (“second papers”).

Naturalization papers state the immigrant’s date and port of arrival, and ship name (though I’m pretty sure my great-grandparents didn’t really sail on the SS Unknown). Now it’ll be a piece of cake, I thought, to find them on a passenger list.

Naturalization papers give birthplaces for the applicant's children, so I'll look for birth records for my great-unces and great-aunt.

The declaration of intention says my great-grandfather filed first papers in Cleveland in 1918—they would’ve expired without being followed up by second papers within seven years. I didn't find a 1918 record, so I'll look into what's going on with that.